Running Over Virtual Pedestrians Helps In-Game Ad Recall 144
neuroworld writes to point out a study which found a correlation between in-game violence and a player's ability to recall advertisements seen while playing. The test subjects were given two versions of a driving game, which included "unobtrusive" billboard ads, and their eye movements were recorded by a camera. One version had players hitting targets for points, and the other version had them running down pedestrians. "[The researchers] found ads displayed along with violent scenes to be more memorable to players than those shown with nonviolent content, even though players spent less time looking at them. The results are contrary to expectations stemming from research on television, where violence has been shown to decrease attention to advertisements."
Advertiser should defend "violent" games then (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm just guessing here... (Score:5, Interesting)
But maybe the basic game sucks and is boring, and running down pedestrians and seeing the blood splatter is the only thing that spices it up and gets the player to actually pay attention.
Re:If I ever see (Score:5, Interesting)
And as a follow up - have you gotten rid of your television, radio, and internet as well, because they also have ads everywhere. Forget going to the movie theater too - even forking over $12 won't let you escape the ads. (Except for a cool old school theater in my city where they have zero ads or previews, but instead have a real live person playing a pipe organ before they show the feature.)
Wrong Conclusion (Score:5, Interesting)
When hitting targets, the reward is more points. You get the most satisfaction from getting a high score. When hitting pedestrians, even if you get points for it, are like the points you get in Super Mario Bros. 3. You don't remember there being a score? Exactly.
This isn't about violence, it's whether you have you sights hard-set on a goal (points), or if you're just taking your time and enjoying yourself (who cares if you miss a pedestrian - there's always more).
Interesting: (Score:2, Interesting)
Rather Important Detail (Score:4, Interesting)
The very last line in the linked article:
"An unreleased follow-up study by Melzer reveals another undesirable result: that violent play can negatively impact a player's opinion of a brand."
http://www.technologyreview.com/business/23336/page2/ [technologyreview.com]
Re:If I ever see (Score:5, Interesting)
If it's good enough, I would certainly pay the $60. I'll never play a game with in-game advertising.
As for the rest - TiVo was sufficient for getting rid of advertising on TV, but now that TiVo is a damned advertising company, that's not viable anymore, so Netflix has almost completely replaced cable TV for me (I used to say I was going to cancel cable TV as soon as The Simpsons ended, but I don't think I'm going to make it that long).
I change channels to avoid radio advertisements when I'm in control of the radio (i.e., when driving). On those rare occasions when I'm subjected to radio advertising I can't avoid (mostly the barber shop, or occasionally at a sub shop), it's pretty painful.
Adblock/noscript and a few others are doing a fine job of keeping the Web ad-free for me so far.
I don't go to movie theaters anymore since the inception of non-trailer ads before movies. A silent slideshow was acceptable; I could ignore that. Unfortunately the last small local theater in my area has started playing loud voiceover advertising before the movie starts, and I haven't been back since they started that earlier this year. Even before that, I was going to the movies less and less often - I was very rarely interested in seeing anything anyway... Netflix is covering this for me now, too.
Oh, that's what we need -- a profit motive. (Score:1, Interesting)
While I agree and any help in the fight against "oh my god video games with blood, think of the children!" would be welcome. I'm just thinking the whole "violence in games is ok since it helps us sell our wares" isn't going to further the cause too far =P
I have the opposite reaction. One of the things we frequently complain about on the internet is how American society gets all uppity about an act which is an expression of love between two adults and then turns a blind eye to glorifying acts that hurt other people. Somehow I doubt that letting cynical marketers know that they can better impress their brands by upping the latter will help in that regard.
While no study has proven a causal link between violent video games and violent actions, they have made a pretty convincing case for aggression, and I'm not sure that having games deliberately designed to increase consumption of goods at the cost of a little higher aggression is a good thing.
I enjoy violent games in spite of knowing this, but I feel a little queasy thinking of this in the hands of marketers. I'm not sure that I'd feel comfortable having that extra edge of callous psychological manipulation behind a title.
carmageddon? (Score:2, Interesting)
Different situational episodes (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's my hypothesis to explain the "contradictory" results.
In the case of a violent TV show that is periodically interrupted by an ad, the brain perceives these
as two different situational episodes or contexts.
Another analogy would be if you were both reading a crime novel set in London, and periodically glancing up from your book
to look out the train window at the sweeping mountain vistas. The brain/mind can separate those episodes, similar to how they
would be separated if they followed each other in time.
In the case of the billboard ads in the driving game, these ads are impressions that are part of the in-game world, seen while
your brain/mind perceives you to be in the driving situational episode.
Why this distinction is important is probably that your brain adds strong-emotion-related "tags" to memories of the traumatic
situational episode. These tags (first biochemical, then reflected in the structure of the long-term memory) assist to prioritize
later recall of important memories. Of course, this recall may be somewhat uncontrollable (as in PTSD), but there is no
doubt that these memories will be recallable for longer than memories of unrelated and unremarkable episodes near in
time to the traumatic episode. This is as it should be for our survival through avoidance of future similar situation function.
So, to sum up, the billboards are part of the situational episode context for the traumatic incident, so are included in the
emotion-tag-enhanced strong memory of that incident, whereas the interstitial ads (which take your brain/mind to a different
situation in the world of the ad) are committed to memory as uneventful situations worthy of only moderate recall. And it
is even probable that situational episodes near to (but different from and not causally related to) the traumatic episode
are in fact inhibited, because memory-commitment resources are being used to strongly commit the traumatic episode,
or perhaps to set it in sharp relief to the irrelevant nearby episodes, for more distinct and more certain recall of the "correct"
important episode around that time period.
Just a guess.
Re:Heres an idea (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd much much much rather have a billboard in the background than a loading screen with a full screen advertisement. It's the difference between a banner ad at the top of a website or one of those really annoying full-page ads that you have to click to skip that are now on every major site.
Re:If I ever see (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't play video games but I wanted to chime in on the television, radio, and internet comment.
Television - I don't have cable nor can I pick up FTA channels because of where I live. The internet can fill this void very easily. I have a subscription to MegaVideo to watch the few shows I enjoy, otherwise I will rent/buy the DVD set when it comes out.
Radio - I have Sirius. All music stations are Ad Free. However I can't seem to get a hold on my addiction to Howard Stern [howardstern.com], Bubba The Love Sponge [btls.com] or Jay Thomas [jaythomas.com].. so I do hear ads on channel 100 & 101. I don't mind because I know the talent needs their breaks to go to the washroom, etc. etc.
Internet - Adblock Plus [adblockplus.org] is my best friend here. Works awesome. I know some people don't use Firefox, but that's not my problem.
Re:That's nothing (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm more inclined to think that games that offer you more choices and sandbox-style freedom are the ones in which ads will be more memorable. I doubt "violence" has anything to do with it, beyond being an additional option to consider when playing.
If I'm focused on the railway-track plot of a linear game, I don't bother looking around. In a game like GTA, I'm standing around looking at everything. If an in-game ad is funny, there is a high likelihood of my remembering it.
Re:I'm Sold (Score:1, Interesting)
"got what plants crave"
As plants are the decedents of pond scum, they must also have a lot in common with advertising people.
As for this: "a correlation between in-game violence and a player's ability to recall advertisements" ... The more they attempt to find ever more ways to manipulate and brain wash us all, the more people will grow to hate them and seek to force controls onto them to rid us of this modern menace. But then as governments also want to advertise their ideas in ever more deceptive ways, so as advertisers learn ever more manipulative ways so will governments. Yet the more they all try to manipulate us, the more people are going to end up hating all manipulative people, governments and advertisers included. Every attempt at control creates a pressure of change away from that control.
I would much prefer if that was a correlation between out-of-game violence and a player's ability to hate advertisers
So bring it on advertisers ... the more you greedy advertisers try to find ever more ways to manipulate people, the more hatred you'll generate, until more and more people can take no more of this Big Brother kind of attitude, then we wipe out all greedy, manipulative control freaks. So advertisers and governments, you want a revolution, bring it on, the more of this we have to suffer the more you push us all to the point we all push back at you. Governments, Freedom and Liberty are still important and there can be no Freedom or Liberty in a world where ever more manipulation is used to control everyone.
This has gone far enough. Its not games that cause violence, its having to suffer a world where the lack of empathy and contempt of the minority of Narcissistic control freak bastards that is driving ever greater anger in the world. But then both politicians and advertisers both show strong signs of suffering from a Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which explains their extreme lack of empathy and their manipulative contempt for others.
Governments, if you don't stop allowing others to be so manipulative and instead arrogantly keep allowing this growing manipulation abuse, then you'll only have yourselves to blame for a social revolution against you all.